Open All Night, Part Three

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julian He freaked out, though. He freaked out. Did you see that when he freaked out?

anaheed You know what, I did see it, but I felt like he was kind of right.

julian He was right, because they were all in his view.

anaheed Yeah, he’s doing a really hard job, and he said he kept telling that guy over and over to get out of his sight line, and did you notice…so he’s delivering this rant, right, and he’s obviously so mad—he’s yelling and out of control.

julian Mm-hmm.

anaheed And did you notice that he kept his American accent the entire time?

julian He did.

brittany He stayed in character!

geraldine Wow.

anaheed Right? That’s impressive to me.

geraldine I didn’t even know he was British!

anaheed So what are you gonna do now that you’ve lost your job?

geraldine Um, file for unemployment until I find a new job. My friend works at Zara, so I might get a job there.

julian I love Zara!

geraldine I do love Zara. They have good cheap stuff.

brittany Where else do you like to shop?

geraldine Uh, when I’m not broke, I love to shop at Oak. I love thrift shopping, too. I get mad stuff thrift shopping! I go to Long Island—there’s a really good place called Unique.

anaheed [To Julian] Did you mess with one of her friends, or did someone mess with you?

julian Someone messed with me. [To Geraldine] You tell it.

geraldine Me and our friends and him—

julian This was last weekend.

geraldine We went to this party that I was invited to by a friend named Joel. So we’re at this party, and it’s a lot of people, but probably only one or two black people. So as soon as we go in we all need to pee, so we go to the bathroom, and then we hear something outside breaking, like a lamp.

julian But we were all in the bathroom. We were all peeing and taking pictures.

geraldine Like, cute stuff! So I was like, “Let’s not leave. They’re gonna blame us ’cause we’re black and Hispanic.”

julian She totally called it.

geraldine And as soon as we get out of the bathroom, the owner of the apartment blames us for the lamp breaking.

julian He’s like, “You guys gotta go.”

geraldine OK, so we leave. But my friend forgets her phone, so we gotta go back inside and get it. But she couldn’t find her phone. She was pissed.

julian And the owner of the apartment is still bitching about the lamp.

geraldine So we’re in there trying to find my friend’s phone, and the whole time he’s still like bickering in our ears about the lamp and how we broke it. We find my friend’s phone, but as we’re leaving, the guy’s still bickering, so what she did was—

geraldine I’m dying at this point. Then [the apartment owner] catches up to us and he goes straight for Julian, even though he wasn’t the closest one. He could have grabbed me or someone else [more easily].And the thing that was so weird was that [the apartment owner] was right in front of me, so he could’ve grabbed me or someone else [more easily], but he went straight for [Julian], which pissed me off.

anaheed Why do you think he chose Julian?

julian Maybe because of the color of my skin, but [sarcastically] I don’t know—we don’t want to jump to any conclusions.

geraldine Because there was another guy with us too, and he didn’t go for him.

anaheed And that guy wasn’t black.

julian Right.

anaheed Where was this party?

julian This was on Park Avenue! It was a nice area.

geraldine I’m drunk at this point, so I don’t know what’s going on. The first thing I see is him…I thought he was choking [Julian]!

anaheed Oh my god, that’s so scary!

geraldine Later on [Julian] he told me that [the guy] was just grabbing him. But I saw choking, so as soon as I saw that, I literally grabbed the guy and pushed him off and I started punching him in the face.

brittanyandanaheed [In unison] Oh my god.

julian Thank god she did that.

geraldine He took his cigarette and was like, “I’m gonna burn your face.” I’m like, “Do it,” and I kept punching him.

anaheed Wow. Have you gotten in a lot of fights?

geraldine [Laughs] In middle school maybe, with girls, but that’s like whatever. This was the first time in a while.

brittany It was in your friend’s honor, so.

anaheed You are a loyal friend.

julian A hero!

anaheed Don’t get on her bad side, though, man.

julian I won’t. Don’t worry about that.

12:31 AM
Danita, Sapphire, and Shauna

brittany So what are you guys doing here tonight?

danita We just came to eat. It’s been a long night.

jenny When did the night start? What were you doing?

danita We were supposed to go to TAO, but the birthday girl showed right when TAO closed.

brittany Are you guys from the city?

sapphire No, from Brooklyn. Bed-Stuy.

shauna I’m from Williamsburg.

jenny Oh cool, I live in Williamsburg too. How long have you known each other?

shauna Since middle school.

jenny Did you all go to the same school?

danita, sapphire,andshauna [In unison] Yeah.

jenny You guys have really distinct fashion styles. Where do you shop?

I remember reading the first ‘Open All Night’ in Yearbook One and I literally fell in love with the article – I still read it repeatedly ! My face just lit up when I saw this I was just like YESS :D I want Brittany’s tattoo and I want to to be John’s friend !!!

Eek, I love this! Conversations with random people are always the best at getting me out of my bubble and realizing that there are SO many cool, interesting people in the world that I pass by every day. brb running to IHOP